Tropical Fish Forums

[Grace]

Do normal "pond snails" eat plants? A few days ago I put several hundred into a 40 liter tank to keep the algae down, and they seem to be eating it.... On one wall there are little tracks all over the glass where they have eaten patterns out of the green coating. But will they eat my plants? As far as I can tell I have two kinds, one snail I caught in a melbourne creek, (he's a "nice" snail) and a few of the hundreds the rest that weren't eaten as babies, the big ones in the ponds where I got them were about 2cm long and I guess "football shaped". Will they eat the plants, or just the algae? I have cabomba, elodea and some kind of millfoil. If they will stick to the algae I want to keep them because I keep on getting algae epidemics, most of the tank filled with waving curtains of green fuzz. I don't overfeed, and I seem to have trouble keeping the snails alive, aparently they haven't heard they're pests! I think my fish eat the eggs, I hardly ever see them anymore.

[nextgrext]

kuhli loaches and goldfish (which ever one suites your tank and it's inhabitants best)

[sepgundamrg]

My room mates 2.4 gallon tank is infested with little snails...what should I do? I obviously can't buy another fish to eat them.... should I give the full tank an alum bath?(wouild take the fish out for this)
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My tanks
http://www.aquahobby.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=55885

[Serkan]

Copper Sulfate will kill snails. Might turn your water a little blue though. Won't harm fish either. LFS's should stock it. It's dirt cheap.
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Free is Good.

[Barchef]

My pond snails (they look like pond snails) only eat algae. I thought they were pests, and removed em, but one survived, mated with my ramshorn to produce an interestingly colored hybrid,and now they're my algae owning team . I reccommend pond snails though, they didn't eat plants before they mixed, and they look nice.
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This sig is now severly outdated and will remain like this until I find something worthy to put here. Sorry.

[I_Love_Boxers]

I have snails in my 55 gal tank, and would like them to go away. What can I put in my tank that my Oscar will not eat? All I have in the tank is wood and a plecostimus (sp?) and my big oscar (3 or so years old). I really don't want these little snails at all and have no idea where they came from since I do not have live plants and breed my own food. Please help me!!!

[martin78898]

I have the same problem. Thanks for the help. One question about the Rams (Microgeophagus ramirezi), will they attack other fish in the fish tank (like tetras). I have a 10 Gallon tank.

[Jacko]

Martin, a 10 gallon tank isn't really big enough for rams, you might be able to get away with a single specimen but they tend to be aggressive towards tankmates either way. What is your stocking at the moment?
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[Aquaman212]

Try clown loaches they are great for that stuff also try a slice of cucumber at night, then turn out the lights wait a couple of hours and pull out the cucumber slice

You could also try searching for eggs they are clear with white spots in them then just pull out and throw away

[Finkeldinken]

I use yellow Apple snails to control my snail population.
They don't eat the smaller snail species themselves, but they seem to be very fond of snail eggs, and are very fast to clean up any excess fishfood, so they are very good at outmaneuvering the other snail species.

Those guys and a snail trap everyonce in a while to get to the grownups and the graveldiggersnails. Works very well.

You with the Oscars: Maybe you can keep a few big Apple snails with them to help you control the sanil population? I do not have personal experience with Oscars, so I'm not sure it'll work out or if the Oscars will bother the snails too much, but I think it's weel worth a try.
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Kind regards,
Lise

(...the computer says no... )